1)Tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get
into writing?
I grew up in a
small three bedroom/one bathroom house with my parents and nine siblings in
Buffalo, New York. Presently, I live in a suburb of Buffalo with my wife and three
college age children, who are never going to leave.
As far as how I started to write. I went through a pretty
aimless period after high school where I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to
do and was in and out of college. Finally, in my early twenties I started
read in a pretty serious way—stuff like Kerouac, Philip Roth, the poetry of
Anne Sexton—which led me to want to give writing a shot. Problem was by the
time I was all read up I was in my late twenties and had the pressure of trying
to keep a roof over my head and a pretty serious girlfriend, whom I would
eventually marry and have children with, so I had to shelve the writing thing.
But when the kids got older and needed me less, I started to get up before work
(really the middle of the night) make some coffee and write for a few hours.
Few years later I have two published novels and a book of essays on the way,
plus a million other ideas for books.